Stay (19 page)

At midnight, we were the only vehicle on the road. “I liked that,” Tammy said.

“Good.”

“Did you?”

I thought about it. “Yes.”

“I liked it a lot,” she said. “I liked the people, the way it felt. It must be cool to live with people you’ve known for twenty or thirty years, to work in the same town where people went to school with your parents. Wonder what that feels like.”

Stifling, probably.

She said wistfully, “They seemed like a real community.”

“I didn’t know you yearned for community.”

“It just seemed… I don’t know. Nice. Like they were really in each other’s lives. It wasn’t just that they all belonged to the same gym or something. They’ve got history together. These people know each other: they remember when which kid had what illness, when who split up with who in junior high and why. Ken told me stories about how they had to share everything the first few years. How they still do, sort of. They grew up together. I can’t even remember the names of people I went to college with.”

A community of necessity and proximity would probably drive her screaming into the sunset. “Most real community comes from shared hardship.”

“Still. I think I could live here.”

If it hadn’t been such a narrow road, and dark, I would have turned to look at her. “I wouldn’t have thought there were a lot of business development opportunities here.”

“Now that’s where you’re wrong. Asheville is hot. Did you meet Jonas? Tall guy, gangly, beaky nose? He’s a VP at Sonopress, and he was saying that the company gives money to the town, for stuff like the annual Bele Cher festival, and WCQS, and the local Arts Alliance, but that they want to do more, give the company a higher profile in the community. It sounds like a job I could do: get to know people, find out what people want, find a way to give it to them so everyone’s happy.”

“Yes. You’d be good at that.”

“And”—she sounded as though she were smiling— “Sonopress is part of Bertelsmann.”

“So if you get bored you can move up the parental corporate chain?” It began to make a bit more sense.

“Right. But it’s not just that. I could really do that job, and I’d like it. I could get them to expand the community liaison stuff to other things—getting some of the bands whose CDs they press, or stars whose movies they put on DVD, to come to the festivals, maybe persuading some of the software writers to donate time to local schools. Whatever. It wouldn’t be just about money.”

“But meeting all those big names would be fun.”

“Fun is good.” Definitely smiling. “And it would be fun to get to know people who live here. Business development is lots of smiles and promises, but when you've got them to sign that deal, phht, that’s it, you fly to another city and smile at someone else. This would be different, it would be the same people over and over. I’d be part of something. Yes”—out of the corner of my eye I saw her nodding to herself—“yes, I could live here.”

Could I? Even if the police let me? I made the turn onto the ungraded mountain track. Stay in the world, Aud, she had said, and I had promised. I just wasn’t sure which part.

T
he rain beat steadily on the new windows
and washed in a sheet over the handmade glass. Wavy water on wavy glass.

“Makes me seasick to watch it,” Tammy said. “I still don’t see why you paid so much money for bad glass.”

We’d been over it; I wanted the cabin to be as close as possible to the way it might originally have been built, using handmade materials where possible. But glass had improved in the last ninety years, and I was beginning to think she might be right. At least we were weathertight.

“We should light a fire,” I said.

“We don’t have the stove yet.”

“It would test the chimney.”

While I built the fire Tammy watched, standing by the long counter and dry sink of what at some point would become the kitchen. The tub and pedestal sink leaned against the wall of what would be the bathroom, once I’d installed a pump house and a combination of solar panels and generator to power it. If Eddie didn’t call. If Karp didn’t wake up.

Smoke eeled up the chimney and disappeared satisfactorily. I added more kindling to the ancient cast-iron grate, waited for it to catch, and began to lay on logs. Four walls, a roof, sturdy door, glazed windows, and now heat. Almost livable. The flames grew, turned from blue to red at their center.

“It works.”

I nodded. So far.

“Hey, we could eat here tonight, instead of the trailer. I’ll go see what there is to cook.”

The door squeaked as she closed it behind her. It might be that the hinges were slightly out of true, or just that they needed oiling, and at some point I would have to fix it, but at this moment I was more interested in the fire; I wanted it to be perfect: symmetrical, lively, just the right shape and color.

Tammy came back carrying the laundry basket; it was full of sacks of flour, and butter, some milk and bread and wine and what looked like my two cast-iron frying pans.

“It’s a surprise,” she said. She set to work, flouring the kitchen counter, pouring and measuring and kneading.

The fire roared. I used the tongs to unfold the iron bar hinged to the sidewall of the fireplace, and pulled it out across the flames. Like the fire, it gave me deep satisfaction. It had been a tricky bit of mortaring but now it was positioned just right to hang a pot or kettle over the flames—not that I’d need it once the kitchen had a range, or even when the stove was in place.

Tammy seemed to be making some kind of flat cake. “How much longer until the coals are hot enough to cook with?”

“Half an hour.”

Runnel of rain on the roof, pop and hiss of green wood on the fire, slap and whisper of dough. I stretched out on the unfinished floor and let myself drift for a while. Noises from the kitchen counter changed: Tammy had half a dozen cakes lined up and had moved on to wrapping a variety of vegetables in aluminum foil.

Hot yellow nuggets piled above and below the grate. I raked a few onto the front hearth. They began to cool to orange and go gray around the edges. I raked them back. “Ready when you are.”

The vegetables went in first. She held up the silvery packages one by one, “Corn, onions, butternut squash, sweet peppers,” and put them in the fire. She got up again and brought back one of the skillets, covered with a wet cloth.

“That’s my pillowcase.”

“I had to get creative. I needed wet cloth.”

Get creative. I could find out which hospital Karp was in. Go make sure he wouldn’t wake up.

Tammy wrapped the cakes in the pillowcase, put them in the skillet, put the skillet to one side in the hearth, then raked a handful of coals and ash over the lot, just like something out of a Foxfire book.

“The cakes and the vegetables should cook a bit before the bacon goes on,” she said. “I thought we’d have some wine.”

I got up and found the bottle and glasses and corkscrew and brought them back to the fireplace. It was a good rioja. Tammy had been paying attention; it no longer surprised me.

The smell of applewood and roasting corn mingled with red wine as I poured. I handed Tammy her glass.

“To your cabin,” she said. “May you have many dinners in front of this fire, with people you care for.”

I couldn’t see it, but I raised my glass, and drank.

She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. “It got warm fast.”

“Wood’s a good insulator.” Now that the windows were glazed and the fire working, the place was more or less livable as it stood. Hook up the toilet to the septic system, flush it using buckets filled at the pump outside. You’d have to leave before the snows, though, or stay until spring…

Karp’s hospital room might be guarded.

“Tell me about those cakes you’re cooking.”

“Ash cakes. Ken was telling me about them at the party. Some old toothless woman showed Adrian how, and Adrian showed Ken as soon as he could be trusted not to set the house on fire. That was when he was eight, he said. Or maybe nine. Anyhow, they’re supposed to taste good—if they don’t burn to a crisp. Which is where the wet pillowcase comes in. It sort of steams them at the same time, he said. Poor old Ken, keeping house at eight.”

There were worse things. “What were you doing at that age?”

“Eight? Eight was when I learned to ride a bike. And how to fall off a pony.” She laughed. “God, I wanted a pony so bad. Then my father took me to this riding school, where I found out that horses are big scary animals that stink and won’t do as they’re told, and it’s a long way down if you fall off.” She sighed. “I was Daddy’s princess. That’s what he called me, his princess. I think he liked it that I couldn’t ride. It kept me his on some level. What about you?”

Self-analysis from Tammy. “I learned to ride when I was nine. In England. With the daughter of one of my mother’s friends.” Galloping over the Yorkshire moors, wild as a lynx, with Christie Horley. Another life I had left.

“You looked quite nostalgic for a while there.”

“Nine is a good age,” I said. By then I had realized that although my mother behaved as if she loved me, and maybe even wished that she did, she didn’t. My father had been in Chicago that summer.

Tammy was studying me.

“What?”

“You used to scare me. You always scared me, even when Dornan was there. Always judging, and usually not in other people’s favor. Not in mine, anyhow. But since you got back from— Since you got back, you’ve been different. That night, when—” She squirmed and glanced away. “It was a pretty sad seduction attempt, I know, totally embarrassing, but the way you reacted… I thought you were going to strangle me. You looked crazy. Not the kind of person you could ever imagine being nine years old. You seem more human now. And now I’ve embarrassed myself again. Jesus, it’s hot in here.” She put her glass down and pulled off her sweater. When she picked up her glass again, the wine was a rich red against the cream of her bodysuit—which, like the sweater and the wine, she had bought that morning in Asheville. It was strange, seeing her in clothes I had not bought or lent her, drinking wine she had selected without my advice, without needing me there.

“You’re different, too.”

“Yep. Since I— Well, I’ve learned plenty. The world can be big, and stink, and it hurts if you fall off, but hey, it’s worth trying, mostly, and what doesn’t kill you… Well, it doesn’t kill you.” She lifted her glass. “To learning experiences, even though they suck.”

“To not being nine years old and at the mercy of the world.” Like Luz.

She got up, came back with the second skillet. “Time to fry that bacon.”

The bacon hissed and shrank and turned translucent, and when it browned we filled our plates with it, and corn and squash and onion, and the doughy-looking things that were the ash cakes. I tried one. It tasted of cinders. “It’s good,” I said. It’s easy to lie to people you’re leaving.

I ate deliberately: onion sweet and smoky and soft, corn bursting rich and yellow under my teeth, and the bacon melting in places but chewy in others. And then the plate was clean.

I stood up. “Wait there,” I told Tammy.

Outside it was raining harder than ever, thick drops the size of raisins, but cold and hard, and it was quite dark. On the way back, I stuck the file in my shirt to keep it dry.

“You’re dripping,” she said when I returned.

I sat closer to the fire and pulled out the folder. She recognized it, but made no comment.

I opened it. “They’ve been very careful.”

“Who?”

“The agency who handled all this.” I fanned the sheaf of papers on the floor. “Not one mention of the agency name, not a single letter or fax or printed e-mail with a person’s signature.”

“Then how do you know there’s an agency involved?”

“The bar code. The brochure. They’re professionals. Someone is doing this a lot.”

“They could be, you know, just a regular adoption agency.”

“Adoption agencies don’t usually farm out the adopted to foster parents.”

“Jesus.” She stared at the documents. “How many kids do you suppose there are?”

“I don’t know.” Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

I looked at the photograph. Only nine, learning that there was no love in the world. By now the agency might have heard about Karp. It’s likely they would hand the girl over to some other pervert, for more money. That or leave her with the foster parents, who would dump her on social services once the regular checks dried up. All about money.

Tammy poured us both more wine. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

The wine was warm now from being by the fire, its taste as rounded and familiar as the roof of my mouth. It would be very easy to just finish this bottle, then start another, sleep soundly, and get up in the morning and go about my business, rebuilding this cabin, pretending to turn it into a home. Why had I hurt Karp? Why wouldn’t he just die? I laughed. I couldn’t even make up my mind about that.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” she said.

I didn’t really care what she thought. I drained my glass and filled it with what was left in the bottle, ignoring her glass. I looked around at the cabin: the fire without its stove, the unconnected toilet, the dry kitchen. “We have to speed up the work here. I’ll be taking the truck and trailer. If you want to stay out here, you’ll need this place to be livable.”

“What are you going to do? You don’t have to rush. You can’t. What about your knee?”

“My knee will be fine.” I shoved the poker in the fire, stirred it about. Put the poker down. Picked it up again.

“I don’t want to be here alone. I want you to stay.”

“People don’t stay just because you want them to.” They never stayed.

“And why are you in such a rush anyhow? You could wait until spring. Why do you want to do it now?”

“I don’t want to do it at all.” I stood up, paced restlessly to the sink, the fireplace, back to the sink. “She’s just some nine-year-old. Why should I care?” Back and forth. Back and forth. I stopped, standing over her. “Why the fuck should I care?”

She flinched, then glared at me. “So if you don’t care, why are you shouting? Why don’t you just run off in your trailer someplace and live happily ever after?”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

Because running would mean closing up seamlessly, leaving everything behind, again. It would mean breaking my promise, acting as though Julia had never existed. I sat down hard, scrubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have shouted.”

“You keep saying you’re sorry and you keep shouting at me.”

I stared into the fire. Stay in the world, she had said, and this was the world I had made.

“Aud?” She touched my hand to make me look up. “I’m sorry I got you into all this.”

“You didn’t,” I said tiredly. “Dornan did. Or Julia did, by dying. Or maybe I did, by loving her. It’s all connected.” Irony is rarely amusing. “Just one big happy human ecosystem, like the woods, with some trees trying to grow too fast and smother the rest.”

“And you’re the axe,” she said.

The fire popped. An axe, cold and unlovely. “Is that really how you see me?”

The old Tammy would have smiled and said, No, of course not! and tried to reassure me, soothe my ruffled feathers, but though a fleeting regret showed in her sigh, she nodded. “You can use an axe to bang in nails, but that doesn’t make it a hammer. It’s still an axe. Cutting is still what it’s made for.”

The rain washed down the windows in an undulating sheet.

“Remember when you asked me why I didn’t hit Geordie? It was because I don’t know how. That little girl in Arkansas doesn’t, either. You do. I know that. But do you have to go yourself? Or if there’s no one else to send, do you have to go now? You could wait until I—”

She wrestled the old Tammy to silence. “I guess you want to leave as soon as you can.”

Tammy had just gone into the bathroom to brush her teeth and I was already in bed when my phone rang.

“Congratulations,” Eddie said. “Your boy’s case has made it to the front page. Give me your number and I’ll fax it.”

“Just read it out.”

“Very well. It’s the usual tabloid banner—”

“Tabloid?”

“Just so. Not at all the sort of thing a respectable paper would lead with. Did I misunderstand your request for follow-up?”

“No. What’s the headline?”

“ ‘Avenger Twins Out For Blood,’ with a crime scene photo filling the remainder of the page.”

They wouldn’t print a picture of Karp in that state. What had I left? “Describe it.”

“Bloody handprints in a nice arc up the wall, body draped in a stained sheet and half covered in videocassettes, some of which are rather artistically unspooled over the victim’s eyes.”

A mock-up.

“The story itself is quite delightful. Another interview with the unbalanced young woman who claims to have been abused by the victim, this time with some interesting detail. Let’s see. They’re now calling Karp a serial abuser. Quotes from anonymous victims. A sick man, says one. An evil psychopath, says another. All very breathless. The real focus of the piece, however, seems to be these twins. At least on first pass. There’s a sidebar—two sidebars. One headed ‘Angels of Vengeance?’ and the other ‘Well-Versed Agents.’ Two rather unattractive artists’ impressions.”

“What do they look like?”

“Sweet but moronic thugs: corn-fed football players who have found god.”

“Even the woman?”

“Especially the woman.”

“Police comment?”

“Just the official statement: ‘We continue to pursue a variety of leads with all due diligence.’ However, reading between the lines I’d say the
Daily Post
has an unofficially sanctioned source inside the department. They have a lot of hard information disguised as tabloidese. In sidebar one, that’s the angel argument, if one can dignify such sloppy prose with that label, we’re told that all the tapes have been wiped clean, as though by a powerful magnetic source ‘not unlike that which could be produced by the healing auras said to emanate from saints.’ There is said to be no sign of a struggle, and no blood visible to the naked eye except on the victim and his immediate surroundings. It contradicts the crime scene photo, of course, but no doubt they’re assuming their readers have the average IQ of a second grader. But that’s a very specific qualification, ‘visible to the naked eye.’ The kind of phrasing used by a careful police press liaison.”

Or a prosecuting attorney.

“The second sidebar is equally informative. No fingerprints, they say, or, rather, four or five different sets, but none bloodstained.”

I’d worn gloves every time.

“No sign of forced entry. Evidence of information theft: the photocopier was on, and when the police arrived, the laptop—which is supposed to switch to sleep mode after sixty minutes’ nonuse—was fully powered.” I’d missed that. “Evidence, too, of prior surveillance of the victim—a café waitress and a gallery owner apparently remember someone who could fit the description. There is some speculation—”

“When was the suspect seen in the café?”

“The day of the assault, apparently. The morning. Ah, now this is interesting, fuel for the angel argument, perhaps—no earthly sustenance, and so on. According to the witness, she drank only water.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. Not the café where I had left the book, then, the book with the shiny cover that would hold fingerprints so well. “You were saying something about speculation.”

“Indeed. Professionals, they think: the surveillance, the wiped tapes, no fingerprints, and the laptop. ‘Sensitive documents,’ they say darkly. In other words, industrial espionage.”

Industrial espionage. That wouldn’t make any difference one way or the other to the official NYPD investigation. It might involve some of Karp’s corporate clients who would be anxious to discover whether confidential information about their retail operations had been leaked to the big wide world. A corporate security team would have more money and more time.

The toilet flushed. I didn’t really want to talk about this in front of Tammy.

“I don’t see what the
Post’s
interest is in all this.” There were literally dozens of more sensational stories in New York every week.

“Do you remember the original witness, the woman who was with the victim?”

“I remember that there was one.” And the shine and swing of her hair.

“Her name rang a bell, so I ran a search.”

I waited grimly. There was no point trying to hurry Eddie when he was in this kind of mood.

“She’s the daughter of the GOP’s next senatorial candidate for the state of New York.”

He paused, so I obliged. “And what’s the
Post’s
editorial stance?”

“Oh, very good. As yet uncommitted.”

“I see.”

“Precisely. One suspects the entire story—espionage flimflam, avenging angels, juicy hints of sexual perversion and all— is being built to keep reader interest alive, without annoying either the Democrats or Republicans, until the
Post’s
publisher makes up his mind which way to jump—that is, until he can work out which party could do him more favors on the Hill. Was she consorting with an evil abuser, and therefore probably a pervert herself, in which case what does that say about her father? Or was she an innocent involved with a sweet man who—”

Politics. Nothing to do with me.

“—all vastly entertaining.” Unless, of course, the police had evidence they weren't talking about: if they had found the book, or Karp had woken up.

“Any information on a change in Karp’s—the victim’s—condition?”

“I don’t— Ah, here we go. He is now in a persistent vegetative state, which they helpfully translate for the reader as ‘a permanent vegetable.’ The patient’s doctors won’t comment on his condition in any detail, but ‘a consultant hired by the paper’ to review information already in the public domain says he would be surprised if the man lived another week, even with all the artificial assistance, which in his view is a needless waste of… yadda yadda yadda… oh, and he seems to think that as soon as the hospital finds a relative they’ll see if they can get permission to switch him off. He won’t survive that, the expert says, and even if he does, and I quote—where do they come up with these people?—he’d have the mental capacity of a Twinkie.”

Another metal bed in another white room.